The Week’s Most Popular Posts: March 16 – 20, 2015

This post originally appeared on Panels, which is now Book Riot Comics

Let’s take a look at the most popular posts this week here on Panels:

I have a lot of friends who do not read comics regularly, and of course I just buy them comics the first chance I get. I don’t think you need to be “into comics” to read them. And I send you back to the most excellent post by Eric Margolis on the topic. So here are some of the books I have bought for my friends who are not “into comics” and why.

When designers take a character like Poison Ivy, a woman layered with nuance, personality, and style, see “seduction” as a power, and lazily reduce her to some generic male sex fantasy, they sacrifice storytelling and the opportunity to turn her into a walking wardrobe/artillery closet. And that’s a crime—a fashion crime.

One of the great things about kids is how much enthusiasm they can muster in response to even the most ordinary stuff. It’s easy for we adults to forget how genuinely exciting it can feel to experience something for the first time or come up with an idea that feels totally original (even when it’s anything but). It’s even easier not to match that enthusiasm or even to be dismissive of it. I catch myself all the time “listening” to my son breathlessly recount some elaborate story or share some detail from a book he’s read or a show he’s watched, but without putting in the effort to match his exuberance. Calvin and Hobbes shows us repeatedly how much of a letdown that can be to kids. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do a perfect job of it, but it’s nice to think Calvin’s voice might pop into my head from time to time to give me a nudge in the right direction.

I had an inherent understanding that, as a girl, it would be deeply embarrassing to be seen crouched, intensely browsing the comics (as I knew I would be if I gave in to the desire). Certainly I shouldn’t ask anyone about them. It was years before I even knew there was a comic book store in our town. I had passed it a hundred times on my way to the library or home from school, but the windows were mostly obscured and uninviting. When I eventually understood what it was, it seemed a confirmation of what I already believed. No one had ever told me about this store. No one, including my brother had ever mentioned it to me, let alone asked if I’d like to go. No one had ever said I wasn’t allowed, but no one gave any indication that I was. I knew it wasn’t a place for me. I still don’t even know what the store was called.

Books filled with magic and thick, rich atmosphere have always been favorites of mine. When I readThe Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, I found those favorite qualities in spades. I felt like a kid again…as if I’d entered into a world of wonderful otherness and I didn’t snap out of it until I turned the last page. If you’re not familiar, The Night Circus is about two children who are raised bymagicians to be magicians, and they are locked into a years-long magical duel without their consent. Their lives revolve around a mysterious traveling circus brimming with fantasy, intrigue, and pain. The characters are unique and vivid, the settings are equally so, and the sum of all the parts is one of the most immersive books I’ve had the pleasure of reading, and all of these comics remind me of it in some way.

I love comics. I love the stories they tell and the unique way in which way they tell that story. But I don’t like the pressure of “buy this or it will fail and it’s all your fault.” I want to see more female characters in comics. I want to see more female solo titles. I want to see more diversity, especially in mainstream comics. But I don’t want to support things I think are half-assed or token bread crumbs tossed at me as if it’s a feast. Yet I often feel pressure to support the all of the mediocre titles if I want to see stronger stories and characters survive.